Serious accidents can cause injuries that take months or years to heal. The psychological damage caused to children and their families often lasts a lifetime. Yet many of these accidents can be prevented by taking just a moment, to move a hot drink, check a smoke alarm, lock the medicine cabinet, or take your foot off the accelerator.
One of the key areas focused on was the importance of keeping hot drinks out of children's reach. Dr Amber Young, Consultant Anaesthetist at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, and Chair of the British Burn Association Prevention Committee, knows that this message is not getting through. On call one weekend recently, she treated three young children with scalds from hot drinks.
Her experience is repeated throughout the country: hot drinks are the number one cause of scald injuries among young children.
Parenting is stressful, and frequent cups of tea and coffee are a lifeline. The theme of this year's Child Safety Week was make time for safety. It takes just 30 seconds to ensure that mugs of tea, coffee and hot chocolate are put well out of reach, and after a while it becomes second nature.
1) If you haven't already done so, implement a Cold Drinks Policy in your setting when young children are present. If you're worried about people not coming to the sessions as a result of this, explain to them why.
2) Run a session for parents and carers, with our Under 5's Resource Pack - it's an inexpensive, easy to use resource that many children's centres and mother & toddler groups have found useful. It includes copies of our Hot Water Burns Like Fire posters and flyers, together with our book Lizzie's Accident.
3) Check out the Child Accident Prevention Trust website for information, resources and advice.
4) For more information on the financial cost of treating a child's scald injury, read How much does a hot drink scald cost?
"Everyone in the Burns Unit was there because of an accident. None of them were born that way and they hadn't developed a disease to make them disfigured. In a split second their whole life changed" Mum of a little girl injured in a hot drinks accident.
